A culturally-appropriate intervention has strengthened anti-HPV vaccination in American adolescents of Asian origin

HPV vaccination could prevent more than 90 percent of the estimated 33,700 HPV cases diagnosed each year in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Therefore, the CDC recommends that all adolescents aged 11 and 12 receive two doses of HPV vaccine.

"HPV vaccination is a great cancer prevention tool, but only 66% of American teens aged 13 to 17 have received one or more doses of the vaccine," said Grace X. Ma, Ph.D. Vice-Dean for Disparities in Health. Director of the Center for Asian Health, Professor Laura H. Carnell and Professor of Clinical Sciences at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia. "Overall, adoption of HPV vaccine among American teens of Asian origin is similar to that of adolescents from other racial and ethnic groups, but there are some subgroups, such as Americans of Chinese descent, whose parents have low incomes and poor command of English, for whom adoption is much more important.

"We know that low-income, low-income, American parents with poor English language skills are not very aware of HPV vaccination and know very little about it," said Ma. Since they rely heavily on pediatricians / physicians, we have culturally appropriate intervention to encourage pediatricians / physicians to educate low-income Asian parents about the importance of HPV vaccination in clinical setting using written material, videos, verbal recommendations and mobile communications. "

Ma and her colleagues have designed culturally appropriate messages for pediatricians, community health workers, parents, and adolescents. The researchers intervened on several levels by developing messages for all these different groups of people, explained Ma.

Researchers delivered culturally-appropriate messages to Asian-American pediatricians in community-based primary care health centers serving low-income Asian communities, mostly American-Chinese in Philadelphia and New York. The messages were delivered in Asian languages ​​consistent with the language spoken by the parents.

The pilot study included 180 low-income, mostly Sino-American, low-income US parents; 110 received the intervention and 70 not. These parents had 290 adolescents aged 11 to 17; Parents of 170 teenagers received the intervention.

Of those adolescents whose parents benefited from the intervention, 76.36% received at least one dose of HPV vaccine, compared with 10% of adolescents whose parents did not benefit from HPV vaccination. ;intervention.

The pediatrician's involvement and recommendations were the most important factors that prompted parents to choose to vaccinate their children, explained Ma. Having a peer or spouse who supported the vaccination was another factor important.

"Despite the limitations of the study because of the small size of the sample, these pilot data are extremely encouraging and promising," Ma said. "We need to test this intervention as part of a larger scale. Larger and more rigorous clinical trials, but I believe that this multi-level, technology-based intervention offers great potential for increasing HPV vaccination rates in various American communities of Asian origin, and can also be adapted by other ethnic populations. "

Explore further:
Parents See Cancer Prevention Potential as Best Reason for HPV Vaccination